Since the author also requests remuneration, we would ask these

O >> Odd de Presno. All >> Since the author also requests remuneration, we would ask these

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Selecting an expert level
-------------------------
Most services regard all new users as novices. The software
designers assume that users don't want (or are unable) to read
lengthy explanations. They think that most users prefer navigation
by going from menu to menu.
Commercial services may support this view for financial
reasons, and especially when charging for access by the minute.
(Some of them let you read their help screens for free, though.)
Menus are important when browsing new offerings, or accessing
services that we seldom use. Frequent users of a service, however,
quickly learn how to do things. Menus may soon begin to annoy
rather than please. Reading them costs money, and it slows our
communications down.
We do not need menus when accessing online services in fully
automated mode. Your communications program remembers exactly what
to do, and does all the typing for you.
There is no point in paying extra for having menus. You'll not
read them anyway. The objective is to access the service at maximum
speed and the lowest possible cost.
Most online services can be tailored to your personal needs and
preferences. Many let you choose between:

* Full menus
* Short menus
* A prompt line with a list of the most often used
commands,
* a prompt character or word (see "prompt" in appendix 4
for examples). Prompts can be used by automatic
communication script files to trigger the next action.

If concerned about costs, note that you can use expert mode without
being a true expert. Just print the menus, and keep them by your
keyboard while moving around.
Some users draw 'road maps' of the services to navigate more
quickly. Others automate the process using automatic communications
scripts.

Tailoring your services
-----------------------
The need to tailor the online service's prompts and menus differs
considerably from user to user, as they use all kinds of computers
for communication.
Some screens are large. Other screens can only display a few
lines of text at a time. One user of my BBS even used a Hewlett
Packard pocket calculator with a tiny, tiny screen.
Many online services allow you to tailor the way information
is sent to you.
If you are satisfied with how things are, skip the next couple
of pages and read from "Connecting the first time." If curious of
your options, read on for a somewhat brief and technical overview.
Besides a selection of various types of menus, you can usually
also set the following preferences:

* What menu is to be the first, when you access the service?
* The first menu is to be a tailored menu containing your
favorite offerings, and nothing else.
* Colors, graphics, or no colors/graphics.
* Preferred file transfer protocol (to avoid a question each
time you want to transfer a file).
* Desired terminal emulator, like TTY, VT-100 or VT-52.
* CAPITAL LETTERS or Mixed Case.
* What ASCII character code to use for the DELETE function.
* How many spaces to insert when expanding TABs in your mail.
* Number of lines per screen (for example, 24 on an IBM PC, or
eight on a TRS-80 Model 100. Whether scrolling is to pause
after each screenful or not.)
* Number of characters per line (for example, 80 lines on a PC,
or 40 on a TRS-80 Model 100.
* If the linefeed character is to be sent or not.
* If blank lines are to be sent.
* Whether the service is to check when you log on to see if
you're using special software (as in 'Inquire for VIDTEX' on
CompuServe).
* The use of 'echo'. Is the service to return the characters
that you enter on your keyboard?
* Use of delay when sending linefeeds. (Useful if capturing
text to a dumb printing terminal. If text scrolls too fast
for the printer, you risk losing some of it.)
* Choice of prompt character, or prompt text string. This is
useful when communicating by script files. On CompuServe, I
have asked the system to add the BackSpace character (ASCII
character number 8) to the end of all forum prompts. Since
this character is rarely found in messages or other texts,
I can safely let scripts depend on this prompt character for
unattended communication.

Displaying information on the screen
------------------------------------
An 'A' is not an 'A' no matter what service you use. If you call
Tocolo BBS in Japan (Tel.: +81-3-205-9315. 1200 bps, 8,N,1.) with a
non-Japanese MS-DOS computer, chances are that the welcome text
will look like this:

*--------------------------------------------------------------*
* D0:[ BBS (<^/9] 7.8) *
* 62>] =3 ---> 3 (@^2K.3 03-205-9315) *
* 3]V3 <^6] ---> 24 <^6] 6D^3 C=D A-3 *
* (Wed 9:00-17:00 J R]C I @R 5T=P C^=) *
*--------------------------------------------------------------*

You'll need a Japanese ROM (Read-Only Memory) in your computer, a
special graphics program, or a Japanese language operating system
to have the Kanji characters displayed properly on your screen.
The characters that you see on your computer's screen are based
on a code. The computer finds the characters to display from a
table built into your system's hardware or software.
Most personal computers can be preset to use various tables
depending on your needs. When communicating in English, you may
want it to show Latin characters. When writing in Japanese, you
may want it to display Kanji characters.
Those writing in Norwegian, often want to use the special
Scandinavian characters . If the first two of these Nordic
characters read like the symbols for Yen and Cent, you're not set
up for Scandinavian characters. If your system is set up correctly,
they should look like an 'o' and an 'O' overwritten by a '/'.
The code telling your computer what to display, may also
contain information about where to put characters and what colors
to use.
Thus, an online service may order your computer to display a
given character in column 10 on line 2, and to print it in blinking
red color. If you're not set up correctly, these codes may show as
garbage on your screen rather than as a colorful character in a
given position.
If you call a service set to display text in VT-52 format, and
your communications program is set accordingly, then you should be
OK. VT-52 is a setup that makes a program or a service 'behave'
like a DEC VT-52 terminal.
Being able to view VT-52 coded text on your screen, does not
guarantee that you can capture this 'picture' to a file on your
disk. Your communications program may need special features to do
that. If these features are missing, you are in for a surprise. The
text in your capture file may look like in this example (it came on
a single, long line on my computer):

--------------------------------------------------------------------
*H*J*Y"4 Innhold*Y%> *Y&4Emneoversikt
1 Brukerprofil 6*Y)4Stikkord A-] 2 Bruker- *Y*4
veiledning 7*Y,4Informasjons- *Y-
4leverand|rer A-] 3 Teledatanytt*Y.W 8*Y04Personlig indeks
4*Y2H *Y34Meldingstjenesten 5 Avslutte
9*Y64 ]pningsside *00# *Y 4TELEDATA
880823-1538*Y74 NTA01-00a*Y74 *Y74*Y74

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The character '*' in this example refers to the ESCape character
(ASCII number 27). ESC is used to tell your computer that what
follows is a VT-52 display command.
The codes following the ESC say where text is to be printed on
your screen (from line number x and column number y).
If your communications program cannot save VT-52 coded text in
a readable way, you'll need auxiliary programs to remove or convert
the codes. Some communication programs let you take snapshots of
the screen, and store the result in a file. This usually gives good
results, but it may be a cumbersome approach.
Prestel (British Telecom, England) belongs to a group of online
services called videotex (or viewdata). Minitel (in France and the
U.S.), Alex (Canada), and Prodigy (U.S.A.) are also in this group.
They believe that beautiful color graphics, large characters, and
menus give them a competitive advantage.
CompuServe is often called a videotex service because of its
emphasis on menus. However, most call it 'ASCII videotex' as it is
not depending on special display formats. Their philosophy is that
'plain text' is required to attract many users across hardware
platforms.
The viewdata services use graphical display standards with
names like Prestel, CEPT, Captain (Character and Pattern Telephone
Access Information Network System, in Japan), Telidon (Canada),
Minitel, Teletel (France), GIF (the Graphics Interchange Format),
Viewdata, and NAPLPS (The North American Presentation Level
Protocol Syntax).
You often need special terminal machines to use some viewdata
services. On other services, you must use special software plus an
emulator card in your computer.
Users of the communications program Procomm Plus can buy a
Viewdata module for conversion of Prestel videotex text to plain
ASCII, i.e., plain text without imbedded special codes.
Many MS-DOS based bulletin boards let you set access defaults
to colors and graphics. Most of them use ANSI graphics in welcome
texts and menus. Users of Procomm must set their program to ANSI
BBS to take advantage.
Capture these welcome texts and menus to a file on your hard
disk, and view them with an editor. They are filled with ANSI
escape codes, and thus hard to read (and search). The good news is
that conference and forum mail only rarely contains such codes.
Many users routinely keep captured online information on their
hard disks for later reference. If this is your intention, make
sure that text is sent to you in plain ASCII, or TTY mode.

TTY sends one line at a time, and only uses the codes TAB,
BackSpace, Carriage Return and LineFeed during the transfer.
The rest is 'plain text'.

Most online services offer TTY format. You can use the setting
almost everywhere. Even the videotex service Prestel offers an
option called 'TTY Teletype'.
If 'TTY' or 'ASCII' is not on your online services' list of
options, try 'Others' or 'Other computers'. These settings usually
identify your computer as unable to handle 'standard' colors, sound
and graphics.
Viewdata pages may provide "selling pictures," but the screens
often have a low contents of information compared with TTY-based
services. They are therefore not my favorite services for news in
full-text.
In other applications, like games, colorful graphics are a
definite advantage.

Connecting the first time
-------------------------
If you have unlimited financial resources, go ahead and call up
services all over the world. Learning by doing is exciting.
If resources are limited, start by reading user information
manual. Or, go online to capture key menus and help texts. Print
them out on paper for further study before going online again for
a 'real' visit.
I always hurry slowly during my first visits to a new online
service. I call up, capture information about how to use it, and
disconnect. It may take me days to study the material. My objective
is to find what the service has to offer in order to plan how to
use it most efficiently.
The first important command to look up is the logoff command.
There is nothing more frustrating than entering "bye" only to get
an error message. If lost, try "quit", "exit", "logoff", "off" and
"G", in the hope of finding the correct command. These are the
most usual variations. You should also try HELP or "?".
If you really can't figure out how to get off a system, just
hang up on it. Be careful, though. Some systems will continue to
charge for a period, even after you have disconnected by hanging up.
One of the first things that I do, is set my options to expert
status, though I am obviously an amateur at this stage.
Often, I also start automating the process during my first
visits. I write script files for automatic access and quick
navigation to key offerings. Another good strategy is to look for
automated offline readers or systems (see Chapter 16 for details).
Others prefer paper and pencil. They write a list of required
commands on a piece of paper, like this:

Call 0165
At CONNECT: ENTER @SP ENTER
At the NUI prompt: Nxxxxxppppp-a170041
At Enter 'dix' and : dix
At -- More --: ENTER
At Your name: Odd de Presno
At Password: hemmelig
At What do you want to do:
- when no unread mail goodbye
- when mail to read ENTER

Put the list by your keyboard before calling the service. Follow it
carefully. After a while you may remember the procedure, and can
throw away your notes.

Good luck!

Chapter 4: Hobby, games and fun
===============================

* Programs, game and fun
Online adventure games. The virus threat.
* Hobbies. Holiday travels. Collecting stamps or coins.
Roots, music, and online shopping.

Online services have one thing in common with newspapers, magazines
and books. What they offer, varies from provider to provider.
The next chapters will focus on the contents of the offerings.
Appendix 1 has details about how to access the major service
providers.
Small online services often have interesting offerings in
specialized areas, and especially when they are based on local
phenomena or events. They tend to be more personal. They often
present their 'wares' in a local language, and offer very large
collections of free software.
The large online services have hundreds of thousands of users.
The activity is often high. They usually attract interesting (and
competent) participants to their conferences and forums, have more
programs available for download and more news sources and databases
to search. They generally give you a wider choice.
We will focus on the large international services. These are
available from anywhere without too much effort, and using them
comes surprisingly cheap. Therefore, please remember that this book
just covers the top of the iceberg. Cheaper services may be found
elsewhere, and they may even be better tuned to your particular
areas of interest.

Locating game software
----------------------
The fastest, easiest and cheapest is to call an online service to
download game programs. You'll find an overwhelming number of
programs for all types of microcomputers.
Many games are free. We call them "Public Domain" or "Freeware"
programs. Others are distributed free. You do not have to pay to
get them and try them out. If you want to use them, however, the
copyright owner expects you to pay a fee. We call them "shareware"
or "user supported" programs.
When the game has been transferred to your personal computer,
you can play without worries about communications costs, or the
busy signal on your phone line.
My favorite game is shareware. The name is Arachnid. It is an
MS Windows solitaire game (patience) made by SP Services, P.O. Box
456, Southampton, SO9 7XG, England. The desired registration fee is
UKP 15.00 (English pounds). You can download the program from my
board as WINCARD.EXE. The file is 106 kilobytes large.
WINCARD.EXE is a special distribution file, which contains
three games and all supporting files. The EXE extension may fool
you into thinking that it is a program, and in a way it is. The
file is a self-extract file, meaning that you just enter "WINCARD"
on an MS-DOS computer to extract the game files from the "package."
Games are usually distributed in such distribution files. All
files used by a game (or several games) is put into one file by
special software, and compressed in size. This makes retrieval of
programs easier and cheaper. You do not have to download many
related files individually. The transfer takes less time. (Read
about how to extract programs from distribution files in appendix
3).
You will find some of the largest collections of games on the
North American services CompuServe and EXEC-PC BBS. You will also
find many throughout the Internet.

| TRICKLE is a large collection of public domain and shareware |
| programs for MS-DOS, CPM, and other computers. For information |
| about how to use TRICKLE, send a message through Internet to |
| |
| LISTSERV@VM1.NODAK.EDU |
| |
| In the TEXT of the message write |
| |
| /pdget pd:simtel20.inf |
| |
| An information file will be sent to your electronic mailbox. |
| (Read the chapter about electronic mail and appendix 1 for |
| more information.) |
| |
| If TRICKLE is not enough, try Archie. It is the Internet |
| archive server listing service. The Archie database maintains |
| a list of roughly 1.5 million files containing 100 Giga- |
| bytes (that is, 100,000,000,000 bytes) of information |
| available from over 800 anonymous FTP archive sites. |
| You can search this database by email to find where files |
| are located. Some Archie systems maintain a list of libraries |
| all over the world, while others concentrate on a more limited |
| geographical area. |
| Once Archie has told you where desired programs and files |
| are located, you can retrieve them by telnet, anonymous FTP, |
| of FTPmail. Read "File transfers through the Internet" in |
| chapter 12 for details. |
| For information about using Archie, send mail to one of the|
| following addresses (see appendix 4 for more options): |
| |
| archie@cs.mcgill.ca (Canada) |
| archie@nic.funet.fi (Finland) |
| archie@plaza.aarnet.edu.au (Australia) |
| |
| Put the word HELP in the body of the mail |
| |
| Getting programs by email is a three-step process: |
| (1) Use Archie to find file names and where they are stored, |
| (2) Send a message to ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com to have them |
| retrieved and forwarded to you by email, and |
| (3) Use a utility program to convert the file to a useful |
| format. (See chapter 12.) |
| |
| Check out JVArcServ for an Archie-alike service on FidoNet. |

Chances are that online services in your area also have many
programs to offer. Most free bulletin boards have more software
than you'll ever get around to try.
Usually, there is a natural specialization between boards.
Those using the Unix operating system, have the largest number of
programs for such machines. Those running on MS-DOS computers, have
more programs for such computers.
Some games are trite and bad. Others are brilliant. There are
ladder games, games challenging your responses (racer car driving,
flight control, war games, subsea games), electronic versions of
traditional games like Backgammon, Yatzy, chess and bridge,
educational games (geography, mathematics and history), puzzles,
fractal programs (drawing beautiful pictures on your screen),
psychological tests, text-based adventure games, and other strange
and funny creations. Here is something for any taste or belief.
If you want to get rich in a hurry, pick programs that increase
chances of winning horse race bets, or other "real world" money
winning games.
If you're into beautiful girls, fill your hard disk with
picture files in GIF, PCX or other graphics formats. (Sorry ladies,
there are not many pictures of naked boys around.) You'll also find
software that will display the pictures that you just retrieved.
Keen users of the more popular games often want to swap tricks
and discuss experiences: Super Nintendo players regularly meet on
the SNES mailing list (on SNES@spcvxa.spc.edu). To join, send your
subscription request to: SNES-Request@spcvxa.spc.edu .
For chess, try the Chess Discussion List (CHESS-
L@GREARN.BITNET) unless Chinese Chess (on XIANGQI@INDYCMS.BITNET)
is what you're looking for. CompuServe has a Chess forum (GO
CHESSFORUM) with message sections called: Chess Basics, Theory &
Analysis, News Wire, Hardware/Software, Casual Games, Electronic
Knights, Oriental/Variants, Tourneys (Open), USCF Rated Games, Team
Play, and Time Out.
Usenet excels when it comes to games:

rec.gambling Articles on games of chance & betting.
rec.games.board Discussion and hints on board games.
rec.games.board.ce The Cosmic Encounter board game.
rec.games.bridge Hobbyists interested in bridge.
rec.games.chess Chess & computer chess.
rec.games.design Discussion of game design related issues.
rec.games.empire Discussion and hints about Empire.
rec.games.frp Discussion about Role Playing games.
rec.games.go Discussion about Go.
rec.games.hack Discussion, hints, etc. about the Hack game.
rec.games.misc Games and computer games.
rec.games.moria Comments, hints, and info about the Moria game.
rec.games.mud Various aspects of multi-users computer games.
rec.games.pbm Discussion about Play by Mail games.
rec.games.pinball Discussing pinball-related issues.
rec.games.programmer Discussion of adventure game programming.
rec.games.rogue Discussion and hints about Rogue.
rec.games.trivia Discussion about trivia.
rec.games.video Discussion about video games.
rec.games.video.arcade Discussions about coin-operated video games.

With so many games and programs around, it is difficult to stay
current about new programs and new versions of old ones. Consider
subscribing to the MS-DOS Archive Additions (one-way) information
service. Internet MS-DOS archive managers use it to announce new
additions to their collections.
To subscribe, send a message to LISTSERV@TACOM-EMH1.Army.Mil
with this command in the body of the message:

subscribe msdos-ann

These announcements are also posted to the Usenet newsgroup called
comp.archives.msdos.announce .

| It is probably easier for you to relate to references like |
| "rec.games.video on Usenet," than to XIANGQI@INDYCMS.BITNET. |
| References to BITNET mailing lists are made in various ways |
| throughout the book, just as it is online. This is the basic |
| rule: |
| |
| All BITNET mailing lists are 'managed' by a LISTSERV program, |
| which handles all subscription requests. When you read a |
| reference like XIANGQI@INDYCMS.BITNET, then that means that |
| a subscription request must be set to the LISTSERV at the |
| INDYCMS computer on BITNET. Mail to the forum, however, must |
| be sent to XIANGQI@INDYCMS.BITNET to be forwarded to the |
| other members. |
| |
| For more information about these strange address codes, and |
| how to use them, read about BITNET in appendix 1. You may |
| find it useful to read about email addresses in Chapter 7. |
| |
| All BITNET mailing lists can be used by email through the |
| Internet. Several BITNET hosts also have Internet addresses. |
| Example: LISTSERV@NDSUVM1.BITNET can also be reached as |
| LISTSERV@vm1.nodak.edu . When dual addresses are given, |
| Internet users should use the Internet address, while BITNET |
| users should use the BITNET address. |
| |
| Note: In cases where a BITNET mailing list has dual addresses, |
| we have usually given the Internet address. If you are on |
| BITNET, and using these addresses are difficult or impossible, |
| ask your local postmaster for help. |

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